Laughter in the Shadows (2 page)

This book tries to capture that early spirit of the CIA’s finest hour, when it almost self-destructed, yet left its brightest trail.

PART I

The Beginning

Bear with me,—and let me go on, and tell my story my own way:—or, if I should seem now and then to trifle upon the road,—or should sometimes put on a fool’s cap with a bell to it . . . don’t fly off,—but, rather, courteously give me credit for a little more wisdom than appears upon my outside.

—LAURENCE STERNE

The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy

CHAPTER 1:
Enlistment

A
mherst College, cloistered in the center of rural New England, was alive with the rumor that a “general” would be the 1951 commencement speaker. The general seemed an odd choice because Amherst had no military tradition, although the college had been named after Gen. Lord Jeffrey Amherst, who, as the Amherst College song notes, was “a soldier of the king,” who conquered all the Indians in this wild country (by offering them smallpox-infected blankets).

The commencement speaker was Walter Bedell (“Beetle”) Smith, Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower’s chief of staff during World War II. General Smith had recently been named director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), a recently established government organization whose functions were as yet undefined.

During the spring of 1951, recruiters from the new organization had been combing Ivy League campuses for “bright young men.” Amherst College actually had more “Gentlemen C” students than Phi Beta Kappa scholars, but the CIA recruiters stopped by anyway. I had just completed my history thesis on “Espionage in the American Civil War,” describing America’s first intelligence organization (the Pinkerton Detective Agency), highlighting exploits of Union and Confederate female spies, and citing the origins of aerial surveillance operations (i.e., observation balloons floating over the Petersburg salient), and I was certain my thesis would impress the recruiters.

I was surprised by several of the odd questions put to me by the interviewers: What did I think about the Abraham Lincoln Brigade? (I said I had been impressed by Ingrid Bergman in
For Whom the Bell Tolls
.) How did I feel about homosexuals? (I said there weren’t any in my fraternity.) The only question I found relevant was whether or not I had scruples about “reading other people’s mail.” (I said I thought it might be interesting; then quickly added, “if it was for a good cause.”)

When the questions were finished, I handed over a copy of my thesis about intelligence activities during the American Civil War. One of them glanced briefly at the title and tossed it into his briefcase. Then they stood up, shook my hand, and said they would be in touch.

A week later an envelope arrived, postmarked Washington, D.C. No return address. The letter inside bore the seal of the Central Intelligence Agency. It contained an offer of employment as a CIA operations officer, Grade GS-7 (the civil service equivalent of a first lieutenant), salary $7,500 per annum.

I was so elated with the offer I almost forgot to read further. The last paragraph stated that the offer of employment was contingent on a “security clearance,” a process that required a period of six months to complete. To expedite the clearance, I was asked to fill out the enclosed thirty-seven-page Personal History Statement.

Six months. My earlier elation had been premature. I couldn’t wait six months for a “clearance.” I had just gotten married and needed a job after I graduated. My GI Bill benefits had run out, and a new addition to the family was due in November.

I would have to postpone my dream of joining the world’s “second oldest profession.” I accepted a job as a management trainee with the U.S. Rubber Company in Naugatuck, Connecticut. No security clearance required.

Naugatuck is the rubber capital of America. Vulcanization was invented in Naugatuck by Charles Goodyear, whose legacy to the town was the cloud of burning rubber that hung over it and seeped into the pores of its inhabitants.

After a brief training period, I was assigned to the Gumshoe Department as an assistant foreman. In Naugatuck, Connecticut, “gumshoes” aren’t “private eyes,” like Sam Spade and Philip Marlow. In Naugatuck gumshoes are “rubbers”—not Sheiks or Trojans sold under drugstore counters, but elastic protectors that keep shoes from getting wet.

A hundred and thirty-two women and fourteen men worked in the Gumshoe Department. Every day, for eight hours, they stood or sat in front of a conveyor belt, placing soft rubber cutouts on passing shoe lasts. The last worker on the line stuck the L.L. Bean or U.S. Keds label on the back of the gumshoe and placed the last on a rack, which, when filled, would be rolled off to the vulcanizing ovens.

As a junior foreman, I wasn’t given too much responsibility. The general foreman and his line supervisors ran things the way they always had before management forced a college trainee on them.

At first, the supervisors ignored me, or tried to, anyway. After a while, however, once they realized I had no intention of interfering with their established routines, they accepted me and ultimately gave me small tasks to perform, such
as filling out quality control sheets, checking production figures, and dealing with the union steward.

Six months of watching the endless parade of gumshoes coming off the conveyors and listening to the complaints of the union steward bored me. I also became frustrated with the realization that I was cut off from the rubber company managers, who obviously forgot their trainees once they disgorged them into the factory.

To relieve the boredom, I resorted to the suggestion box. My first suggestion was a proposal for a new line of gumshoe to be called La Cache. One heel of each pair of La Cache would be hollowed out for a secret compartment to hide billetsdoux and “mad money.”

The La Cache suggestion generated no response, and I submitted another suggestion for a new line, the Firefly, which featured fluorescent-coated heels and toecaps. I pointed out that this line would be popular with joggers, hikers, and night-walkers as a “revolutionary stride” in shoe safety. Several weeks later I was advised that the Firefly suggestion had been forwarded to the Research Department “for further study.” As with the La Cache suggestion, however, nothing came of it.

Increasingly frustrated, I asked for a transfer to the Special Products Department, where state-of-the-art golf balls, odorless diapers, and art deco birth control devices were being developed.

Unlike my contributions to the suggestion box, the transfer request attracted management’s attention, and I was summoned to the office of the director of personnel. The director was thumbing through my folder when I arrived. He motioned for me to sit down, closed my folder, and asked me why, with such a promising future in the Gumshoe Department, I wanted a transfer. I was about to reply, but he held up his hand.

“I am going to tell you something that is completely confidential,” he said. “Your general foreman, Frank Smith, has decided to retire at the end of the year. There is a very good chance you will be named to take his place. This would be quite a step up for a young foreman who has been on the job less than a year. It normally takes from eight to ten years to even be considered for a general foreman’s job, and it would be a great opportunity for you. This is what you should keep in mind before asking for a transfer.”

Frank hadn’t told me he was going to retire, but then, the general foreman had never been very communicative, particularly with his junior assistant. The director of personnel was right. It would be a big step up. The general foreman sat behind a glassed-in partition cushioned from the clamor of the throbbing conveyors and clanking shoe racks. He spent much of his time attending management meetings and quality control conferences. And most important, he didn’t have to put up with the union steward. I decided to withdraw my transfer request and wait out Frank’s retirement.

Having now been assured of a more promising future, I became more relaxed in my foreman’s role. I worried less about production quotas and quality control and tried not to let the union steward get under my skin. I didn’t succeed, however, and ironically, it was because of the union steward that I never got to sit behind that glassed-in partition.

The big annual event in Naugatuck is the fourth of July picnic. The entire factory shut down, and, as if by grand design, the cloud of Naugahyde lifted for the day to let the sun filter through. The entire town either went to the picnic or took the chartered U.S. Rubber train to New York for the Yankee–Red Sox baseball game.

At the park entrance, a HAPPY FOURTH OF JULY! banner was stretched between two oak trees, planted fifty years earlier by an enterprising city council. The park inside resembled a Norman Rockwell
Saturday Evening Post
cover, with concession stands draped in red, white, and blue bunting offering foot-long hot dogs and frosted steins of “Naugabrew.” Picnickers bit at bobbing apples in galvanized washtubs on their way to compete in the one-legged sack races, mud wrestling, and the tug-of-war contest. Beer barrel polkas boomed from loudspeakers in the trees, drowning out the speeches of the mayor and factory manager. Parents danced the do-si-dos to the accompaniment of fiddlers and stomp-and-holler callers, while their teenaged offspring necked in the back of the family Studebaker.

My wife, Joy, and I felt good as we walked down the hill to the park, listening to the staccato of ladyfinger firecrackers and the thumping of tubas in the distance. Inside the park we bobbed for apples and pitched a game of horseshoes. After a picnic lunch, we went to watch the softball game between the Gumshoe Roosters and the Canvas Mallards.

It was during the bottom half of the fifth inning that Ray Mengacci strolled over.

Ray Mengacci was the union steward for Local #21, United Rubber Workers of America. He strutted around the factory as if he was the reincarnation of the American Federation of Laborer’s founder, Samuel Gompers.

When he came into the Gumshoe Department, he made it a point to ignore me and go directly over to the conveyor belts. He worked the conveyor lines like a Chicago ward heeler, calling out to workers by their first names, asking about their families, and inquiring if they weren’t working too hard.

Ray liked being on stage, and I knew his routine by heart. He would begin by walking over to one of the conveyor belts, where he’d take up a position behind one of the workers, always picking one he knew to be nervous and excitable.

Ray would then stand behind her with his arms crossed, looking over her shoulder as she placed the rubber cutouts on passing shoe lasts. With the union steward standing behind her looking over her shoulder, she would invariably
become rattled and begin putting the cutouts on the last crooked or upside down until eventually she would start missing lasts altogether, which would cause her to sob and break into tears. This would give Ray his cue. He would march over to the end of the conveyor belt and throw the switch, shutting down the line.

Once the conveyor belt had clanked to a stop, Ray would step back and assume a Mussolini pose, with his arms crossed and his chin jutting out. Then he would begin his steward’s litany:

“Fellow workers! Look at poor Nell crying!”

The workers on the line would all turn to look at Nell.

“Why is she crying? Because that college-boy foreman”—pointing in my direction—“has ratcheted up the speed of your conveyor!”

The workers would turn and look at me.

“Why does he speed up the conveyor? I’ll tell you why. By increasing your production and turning out more and more gumshoes, he looks good to his bosses.

“But this time he won’t get away with it. I am going to bring this up with the Grievance Committee, and they will take my complaint to the plant superintendant, who will order your boy foreman to slow the conveyor and stop running the Gumshoe Department like a sweatshop!

“And Nell won’t have to cry anymore!”

Ray would pat Nell on the back, raise his hands over his head like a victorious boxer, and leave. Ray was the hero; I, the hissed villain.

Sometimes, on the way out, when no one was looking, Ray would wink at me.